Verificationism, philosophy: verificationism is, in the narrower sense, the view that the meaning of statements consists through the method of their verification (their confirmation). It follows that statements which cannot be verified are ultimately meaningless. See also anti-realism, realism, empiricist sense criterion._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

VII (b) 37
Verification Theory of Meaning/Peirce/Quine: the method of empirically determining the confirmation or refutation of a statement is its meaning.
Then an analytical statement is the boundary case that is confirmed no matter what the case is.
Synonymy exists when the method of empirical confirmation or refutation is the same.
This is then about cognitive synonymy of statements, not generally about linguistic forms. ((s) Terms below the sentence level).
Meaning/Term/Cl.Lewis/Quine: Meaning of an expression: "a criterion in mind" mental criterion (criterion in mind) in relation to which one is able to accept or reject the expression in the face of a fact. (Cl. I. Lewis 1948,p.133).
VII (b) 38
Verification Theory/Verificationism/Quine: but what are the methods or the nature of the relation between a statement and the experiences that should contribute to confirmation or refutation?
1. Most naïve view: radical reduction: direct report. This precedes the actual verification theory for a long time. (Locke and Hume, Tooke).
Tooke: a term should be the name of a sense date or a part of it, or an abbreviation for it.
Quine: that is ambivalent between:
Sense Data/Quine: can be understood as
a) event
b) quality. This remains vague as far as the contribution to the whole statement is concerned.
Verification Theory/Quine: we better take whole statements as units of meaning,
VII (b) 39
to translate them into sense data language, not expression for expression.
VII (b) 40
Reductionism/Two Dogmas/Quine:
2. More refined form: each utterance is associated with a uniform range of possible sensory impressions, so that each occurrence either increases the probability (likelihood) of the truth of the utterance
VII (b) 41
or narrows it.
This, of course, is contained in the verification theory.
Quine thesis: (comes from Carnap's "construction"): our statements stand before the tribunal of experience not individually, but as a whole corpus. (>Quine-Duhem-Thesis).
Two Dogmas/Quine: the verification theory thus shows us the intimate connection of the two dogmas of empiricism: 1. Analytic/Synthetic and 2. Reductionism.
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X 23
Verification Theory/Peirce/Quine: roughly: "tell me what difference the truth/falsehood of a proposition would make for the possible experience, and you have said everything about its meaning.
QuineVsPeirce: that also equates the concept of proposition with the concept of objective information.
Basic order: is here the totality of possible distinctions and combinations of sensory perceptions.
Introspection: some knowledge theorists would catalogue these alternatives by introspecting the sense data, others (naturalists) would observe the nerve irritation (at the nerve ends).
Problem: one cannot clearly assign the sensory evidence to individual sentences ((s) formulations). (Undeterminacy of empiricism).
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XI 76
Def Synonymy/Verification Theory/Meaning/Lauener: according to verification theory, two statements are synonymous if the method of their empirical verification is the same.
Def Analyticity: is then the borderline case where there is no need for a method of confirmation.
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XII 11
Verificationism/Quine: what is its status? Ultimately, the theory of meaning must also be empirical.
Because analyticity is not tenable, the verification theory of meaning is not tenable either.
XII 96
Verification Theory/Quine: the Viennese Circle did not advocate verification theory strongly enough.
Problem: many sentences are theoretical.
Thus the concept of facts has no meaning!
Subject Matter/QuineVsSubject Matter/QuineVsWittgenstein: the term has no meaning, because most propositions are theoretical (except for the pure observation sentences).
But this is not a problem for the verification theory of meaning.
Verification theory of Meaning/Quine: pro: the kind of meaning necessary for language learning and translation is the empirical meaning and nothing more.
XII 105
Epistemology/Quine: thus becomes semantics. But it still revolves around observation (because of the verification theory of meaning).
If we go beyond the observation sentences, epistemology merges with psychology and linguistics._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals
indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate
the page number. The corresponding books
are indicated on the right hand side.
((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution.
The note [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.